In the 2002 Tom Cruise movie “Minority Report,” there is a scene where Tom Cruise is walking through the city and is being automatically recognized by advertisements along the side of the street. This wasn’t a good thing, since Cruise didn’t want his whereabouts known. Advertisements knowing your location sure sounds like science fiction, but it’s not anymore.

CBS Mobile announced a partnership with Loopt to offer the first location-based mobile Web site ads in the U.S. Loopt is a social mapping service and is currently offered by Sprint. The power of location-based ads will be that advertisers will now be able to direct marketing to perspective customers based on location. Targeted advertisements like this are a dream to marketing agencies and departments.

Advertisements shown to individuals who have no chance of becoming customers is really wasted money for companies. A good example might be a television ad for a store that doesn’t have a location close to you. Now, with location-based technology, companies can make sure they don’t waste time advertising goods and services where it doesn’t make sense. After all, you don’t want to pay for mobile ads for surfboards displayed to someone who is in Kansas.